Burbank Airport Shifts Gears, Opens Management to Bids

Seeking to ensure the “best bang for the buck,” the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority has thrown open the bidding for management of the facility that serves 5 million passengers a year.

The action ends a 20-year-old practice by which the contract with management company Airport Group International, formerly Lockheed Air Terminal, was renewed without bids.

AGI, which employs all but two of Burbank Airport’s staff and administrators, will be asked to compete for the contract against other companies in early November.

Already, a competitor for the contract has emerged: the U.S. subsidiary of British-based BAA Plc. The company runs Heathrow Airport in London and is a world leader in airport management.

Burbank Airport Commissioner Chris Holden said he hopes the process will ensure that “we are getting the best bang for our buck.”

But an AGI spokesman said the airport is already highly efficient. The company has declined to talk about how much it might bid.

The decision to seek competitive bids was approved 5-4 by the chronically strife-torn airport commission, whose members are appointed from the cities of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena. The vote represented an unusual consensus among members long divided over the facility’s growth.

It also reflects trends in airports worldwide, which are increasingly turning to private-sector competition, AGI said.

Airport Commissioner Phil Berlin, who represents a minority faction of commissioners appointed by Burbank, led the move to open the bidding process after balking at renewing AGI’s contract.

Berlin rarely wins majority support for his proposals, so he said he was surprised when Holden, Pasadena’s mayor, and another Pasadena commissioner, Bill Paparian, voted with the three Burbank representatives to open bidding.

Holden said he wants “to see what the marketplace is like. I can’t say I have any complaints with AGI, but 20 years is a long time.”

Airport authority President Joyce Streator opposed the move.

“I think it’s bad timing,” she said, adding that the airport already has its hands full with numerous lawsuits over its planned expansion.

AGI, a spinoff of Lockheed Martin Corp., owns and manages airports all over the world. Lockheed Martin retains about a 35% stake in the company, said AGI spokesman Randy Workman. The company’s five-year contract with the airport authority ends in July.